The thinking behind this blog is really simple: The guilty should be prevented from reoffending and the innocent should not be convicted -- not very complex but often not achieved.

The spotlight is also thrown on feral law enforcement

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Black on black shooting causes a riot for once

Because the shooter was a cop doing his job. Note that there usually is testimony from black bystanders denying that the deceased was behaving offensively. Such testimony has often been shown to be false

Police have insisted the man who was shot dead by a Charlotte cop was carrying a gun and refused repeated orders to drop it.

Father-of-seven Keith Lamont Scott, 43, was gunned down by Officer Brentley Vinson while standing next to his car in the North Carolina city on Tuesday night, prompting violent protests that left 16 officers injured.

His family have insisted he was disabled and was only reading a book when he was killed, but Charlotte Police Chief Kerr Putney says officers found a weapon in his vehicle.

Hours after the shooting, demonstrators arrived at the scene and began destroying marked police vehicles, setting trucks alight and throwing rocks at officers.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Putney said one person had been arrested and slammed the 'agitators' for turning a peaceful demonstration violent.

He added that the story of Scott's shooting is 'very different' to how it has been portrayed in social media, and made it clear that they did not find a book at the scene.

Charlotte's Mayor Jennifer Roberts has called for 'peace, calm and dialogue' as the city braced for further protests planned for Wednesday evening.

Students started the second round of demonstrations by staging a lie-in at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

Video shows one protester jumping on top of a police car and officers firing tear gas to break up the crowd. Several hundred people gathered with some setting fires to block a major road, while others set trucks ablaze.

Some stole boxes from trucks before police used flash grenades in an attempt to disperse the angry crowd, an ABC affiliate in Charlotte reported.

A group of protesters then tried to break into a Walmart store before police arrived and began guarding its front entryway.

Some protesters were heard yelling 'Black Lives Matter,' and 'Hands up, don't shoot!' . They held up a sign saying 'Stop Killing Us' and 'it was a book', making reference to the object Scott was reportedly holding when he was shot dead.

Charlotte police went to the complex around 4pm looking for a suspect with an outstanding warrant when they saw Scott - not the suspect they were looking for - inside a car, department spokesman Keith Trietley said in a statement.

Officers saw Scott get out of the car with a gun and then get back in, Trietley said. When officers approached, Scott exited the car with the gun again. At that point, officers deemed the man a threat and at least one fired a weapon, he said.

However, Scott's brother told reporters: 'He was waiting in the car for his son to get from school.

Detectives recovered a firearm at the scene and were interviewing witnesses, Trietley said.

Officer Brentley Vinson - a former college football player - was identified as the officer who shot Scott, WCCB reports. Officer Vinson, who has worked at the department since July 2014 and is also black, has been placed on paid on administrative leave, as is standard procedure in such cases.

Meanwhile, Scott's daughter Lyric Scott live streamed the aftermath of the shooting on Facebook.

In the video, she says that her father was parked and reading a book in his car while waiting for a school bus to drop off his son.

'My daddy didn't do nothing,' she is heard saying in the video. 'They just pulled up undercover.' She added that Scott was disabled and claimed that officers had Tasered him and then shot him four times.

Adam Rhew said that the crowd began to disperse after police deployed tear gas. He said on Twitter that he estimates the CMPD used six to eight cans of tear gas.

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Dedication

In memory of Fatty Arbuckle, a good and innocent man whose movie career as a comedian was ruined by an opportunistic prosecution. The woman he was accused of murdering almost certainly died of natural causes. He was eventually cleared but the damage was done.

A thought

I love the Mae West story where some judge wearing a robe during the middle of the day, and seated in a high chair peered down and asked her, 'Are you showing contempt for my court?' To which she replied, 'I’m doing my best not to show it, your honor.' Maybe we need to give up trying to not show it."